


Love is a Kind of Fear

by wanderingaesthetic



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015)
Genre: Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Mother-Son Relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-05
Updated: 2016-09-19
Packaged: 2018-05-24 23:43:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,326
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6171431
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wanderingaesthetic/pseuds/wanderingaesthetic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>And Han Solo. You feel like he's the father you never had. He would've disappointed you.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“He’ll be strong in the Force,” Luke murmured suddenly one evening.

“Whoa, wait now,” Han said, starting from staring away across the lake. Leia had just found out the sex of the child yesterday, and even the idea of having a son was something Han was not quite able to grasp. “Don’t condemn him to your mumbo jumbo before he takes his first breath.”

“Does it make you so uncomfortable?” Luke asked, his blue eyes flicking toward Han’s face and then away. “I thought it would be better to warn you.”

“Warn me? Of what? That junior’s gonna be levitating rocks and talking to ghosts?”

“That’s not the worst that could happen and you know it.”

“Yeah, so what’s the worst that could happen? He’ll end up like you?”

Luke snorted, and the corners of his mouth lifted into what was almost a smile, but wasn’t. Luke didn’t smile much these days. Hadn’t in a long time.

“Leia’s got it in her mind to name him Ben,” Han said a little more quietly. “Guess that makes sense, if he does have the force, to name him after the only decent Jedi we ever met.”

Han gave Luke a grin. Luke tried to return it, but only managed the same weak twitch of the facial muscles.

“What? Ah, come on, the name’s not that bad.”

“Hunh? No, the name’s fine. It’s weird, actually. Always thought if I had a son I’d name him that.”

“Well, for that to happen, first you’ve got to get within ten feet of a woman that’s not your sister,” Han said, laying a finger beside his nose. Han shifted, looking at Luke sideways “If you want us to save it for you, you could probably talk Leia out of it.”

 “No, it’s fine.” Luke shook his head. “It doesn’t bother you?”

“What?”

“Knowing where it came from?”Luke asked. “The connection to the Force,” he went on after Han looked baffled.

“What?” _From Leia?_ “ _Oh._ ”

Han had to sit flabbergasted for a moment. It wouldn’t have bothered him, it really wouldn’t have. That his wife’s father was Darth Vader was something that he knew, theoretically, like he also knew that she had to use the refresher sometimes for something other than bathing. It just didn’t seem real. It didn’t have any bearing on his reality.

Lord Vader. The Emperor’s fist. Han had once seen him lift an AT-AT by seeming to do nothing but lift one hand. He’d tortured Han that one time. His eventual father-in-law. Bizarre. Surreal.

And for all practical purposes, false.

“Leia’ll tell you herself that her father is Bail Organa.”

“Yes, but—“

“So she inherited being spooky from the other guy. So she’s passing that on to her son. Doesn’t mean she’s passing on anything else. Unless you want to try to tell me the Dark Side always skips a generation.”

“No. But that’s just it. If it does I wouldn’t _know_.”

“ _I_ know,” said Han.

**

But he lay awake that night. He considered the connection between his wife and his friend—his brother-in-law—the way they seemed to speak without talking, or sometimes without even being in the same room together, or even on the same planet. He thought about how his life might have gone if he had never have met either of them. If the Force had a hand in bringing the two of them together, then he was just its pawn, an inconsequential tool caught in a web he couldn’t see or touch. He wasn’t sure which was worse—the thought of being caught in that web still or the thought of falling out of it. He wrapped his arms around his sleeping, pregnant wife, but felt no less alone.

**

Han swayed gently, looking through floor to ceiling windows over the Hanna City skyline, his infant son sleeping pressed to his chest. He hummed absently, an old Corellian song about the Five Brothers, but his mind was elsewhere. A weight was settling in his stomach, and a knot in his throat, as they seemed to do every time he was still too long.

He didn’t know what he was doing here.

Leia was away most times, receiving ambassadors, browbeating the leadership of systems to into joining the New Republic, drafting a new constitution. Han was not wanted in this business, a secret relief as he wanted no part of it. Leia has assured Han that he need not take Ben’s everyday care on by himself, that her own parents had copious help while with rearing her and it had not hurt her relationship with them. She understood, even as a child, that they were very busy people with important business to get to.

Han has uneasily accepted that the rest of his life is going to be lived in a nest of servants and droids to cleaning an cooking and every other task, but handing over Ben to the care of a nanny or a droid is more than he can do. His own mother had worked long factory hours, and had still raised him alone. He couldn’t imagine doing less for his own son.

For all that Leia said their frequent absence did not hurt her relationship with Bail and Breha, and for all she assured Han that he is free to go about his business away from the home, there was a much bigger problem.

Han _had_ no business. No business in Hanna City. No business on Chandrila. No business in the New Republic. It wasn’t only that he didn’t have the skills of a statesman. It wasn’t being only being unwanted in the meetings that were forming the foundation of the New Republic. It was not even that he wasn’t welcome among the fledgling New Republic military, who wouldn’t turn away a general of the Rebel Alliance, but also didn’t want an old pirate mucking up their grand vision.

Away from smuggling, away from fighting, away from flying by the seat of his pants and desperately surviving—Han had no vocation. Or even any avocation.

So for now, he took care of the child in his arms, but all the while worrying: what will he do when the child grows up? What will he do _while_ the child grows up? Soon enough Ben would have lessons and tutors and hoverball practice and overall have more of a _life_ than Han.

Han has toyed with ideas, made an inventory of his skills. He was an excellent pilot, a fair mechanic, a skilled liar. No one knew the underworld better than him. That could make him… what? He could open up a chop shop, become a bounty hunter or vigilante, he could go back to smuggling.

But as the less restrictive New Republic gained power, all those occupations were less lucrative, besides them being…. Unseemly, for both a hero of the Rebellion and Leia Organa’s husband.

Then what would be seemly? He tried to picture himself as a socialite, wearing a slim, dark suit, hosting balls, clipping the ribbon in front of some children’s hospital or museum, whispering words that sway the actions of the elite.

No part of him was fit to do that. The idea made him want to pull out his fingernails.

The babe in his arms started wriggling. Han sniffed in case Ben soiled his diaper, and absently petted the velvety back of his little head.

More than any other skill, Han always got by on sheer, blind luck, both good and bad. He was a gambler betting his life. In a way, he hit the jackpot with Leia. Married the fairy princess. Much of Leia’s considerable wealth vanished with Alderaan, but there was enough in offworld estates and holdings that neither of them ever had to work if they didn’t wish to.

But this isn’t how Han had imagined life with Leia. If he had been asked, he would have said that of course he knew he was going to survive, but the truth is that he never dared imagine a life after the war. He had envisioned the rest of his relationship with Leia—the rest of his life—as stolen moments between fighting for their lives. He had made peace with that, had decided it was worth the price.

Now… Han could almost be comfortable with the life of house husband, an odd sort of house husband who still carried a blaster on his hip, but he could be the angel of the house, cooking, cleaning, minding the babies.

Except they had droids for all that. Leia’s wealth, now also _Han’s_ wealth, made Han superfluous.

He was uncomfortable in his own home. It was too big. He felt unwelcome. When he sat in a chair he felt as though he were somehow making it dirty, even if he just showered. He was terrified that he made a horrific mistake, by marrying Leia, by having a son, by joining the Rebel Alliance and daring to live through their victory.

Ben went from fussing to hiccupping crying to a full wail. As the parent of an infant, Han had learned Ben’s own personal language—what cry means _hungry_ and what cry means _tired_ and what cry means _poopy diaper._ Even as Han checked his diaper, went to fetch a bottle, fished a pacifier from a side table—he knew this was something different.

Ben didn’t even close his mouth around the pacifier. He just kept wailing, his face reddening. Han cradled him in his arms, gently bobbed him up and down, swaddled him in his red blanket. All of it barely made a dent in the crying. A baby couldn’t explain what was wrong, and Han was beginning to worry Ben was in some horrible pain. He was crying so hard he seemed to be struggling to breathe. Han clutched Ben to his chest and—feeling guilty, feeling like a failure—picked up the comm to call Leia.

She didn’t answer at first, but after a few minutes she hissed over the line, “ _What is it_?”

“It’s Ben, Leia, he’s screaming his head off. He won’t shut up. I’ve tried everything. I think something’s wrong with him,” he hated how weary and upset he sounded, even to himself.

“Is it--? Do you think…?” she hesitated. She could probably hear him crying over the comm. “Do you think he needs to go to a medical ward?”

“ _I don’t know!”_

“Well, I—“ she sighed. “I’ll be there as soon as I can. It may be a while yet. I’m sorry.”

Han clutched his screaming son to his chest and sank into a chair, dread pooling in his stomach. He rocked the child and himself, forward and back. He told the lights to dim. He felt like crying himself, tears gathered in the corners of his eyes. He held them back.

He sat there, rocking Ben, until finally Han felt more tired than anything else, and fell back against the chair cushions. Ben, too, seemed to calm, his crying quieted to the slow, even breath of sleep.

Leia gently shook him awake.

“Hey, is everything okay now?”

“You are _beautiful_ ,” Han said as he blinked slowly to wakefulness. She was still in evening wear, a long burgundy gown with subtle sparkles like embers in the low light. Her hair was beginning to fall out of the shell-like curls pinned to her head. She was carrying her shoes in her right hand.

Leia gave him a low chuckle as she dropped her shoes and kissed him, slow and deep.

“Yeah, I think everything’s alright now,” Han breathed, curling his neck to look at the baby sleeping on his chest. “Don’t know what went wrong.”

He stood, slowly and carefully, and took Ben further into the apartment. Han laid Ben in a thing between a basket and a hammock, a gift from Chewie, what baby wookies slept in.

Leia crept up behind them and put a hand to Han’s back. “I think he may have picked up on how you were feeling,” she said in a near whisper.

Han frowned for a moment. He was still sleepy. “You mean like he _felt_ it, or…?”

“Yes, I mean he felt it.”

“He’s awfully young, to—“

“When I was carrying him, I think he might have felt what I was feeling. He was always more active when things were going wrong.”

“Wait… do you…?” Han started, turning to look down at Leia. “Do you feel what people are feeling? Do you feel what _I’m_ feeling?”

Leia nodded. “When I was a little girl, I think I thought everyone did. I told my father about it, once. He said I was a very special girl, but not to tell anyone.”

Han’s gaze twitched from Ben to Leia. A weight of guilt dropped into Han’s stomach, made heavier by the fear that he was poisoning his son with it, poisoning _Leia_ with it.

“If you know how I’m feeling, then you know—“

“That you’ve been getting itchy feet? Yes.”

“Why didn’t you _say_ anything?”

“Because I was afraid it would push you out the door,” she said.

Han glanced at their son, squirming in his sleep. “We should—“

“Yes,” Leia said, and glided out the nursery door and into their bedroom, Han trailing behind her.

“Leia, I love you,” Han said, reaching for her.

“I know,” Leia answered with a heavy smile. “But?”

“There isn’t a ‘but’! This isn’t _about_ you. I don’t know what I’m doing here! I’m useless to you, I’m useless to _me_!”

“You’re not useless,” she said, and this time, she wasn’t even angry. “You’re a good father.”

“Am I? If I’m bleeding my fear onto him?”

“Ben will learn to control it as he gets older.”

“Like you did?” Han walked away and spun, pointing a finger at her. “Have you known everything I’ve felt since the day we met?”

“More or less,” she said, crossing her arms under her breasts. “Does that bother you?”

“Yes!”

“Why?”

“Because if you did that would make me _damned_ easy to manipulate.”

“So what? You think I conned you into having feelings for me?”

“Maybe,” Han spat. “No! But… it’s not fair,” he finished lamely. “I wish you told me. Warned me.”

“If I were such a master manipulator, I’d convince you to stay. I’d convince you to be happy here,” Leia said, and Han didn’t need to feel her emotions for the sorrow in her voice to hit him.

“I’m not… I’m not going anywhere,” he said, reaching for her, holding her. “If I do I’ll come back,” he corrected. “Always.”

Leia nodded, but Han wasn’t sure if she believed him.

“My only regret,” Leia said after they stood like that for a while. “Is that you can’t feel my love the way I can feel yours.”

“I don’t know,” said Han. “Maybe if we keep trying.”

**


	2. The Illusion of Choice

The disadvantage of learning a second language while still working on the first is that one had a tendency to shift from language to language mid-sentence, a habit which didn’t endear you to your fellow six-year-olds, who already thought you a bit dim.

“Oh, is that like _grrrrraaankth_?” Ben asked in class one day. Yon, a little curly-haired blonde boy sitting in the desk beside him, let out a peal of giggles.

“ _What,_ Ben? _What_? You sound like a dying hork,” he said in a perfect, high-pitched Coruscanti accent.

“ _Huuuarrrrrgh,nuk thukh,_ ” Ben replied, which only invited more laughter, and Yon Thiterry wasn’t the only one who laughed this time.

“That’s Shriiwook, is it not, Mr. Organa?” asked their teacher, a red-skinned and remarkably even-tempered Twi’lek man. “Do you mind telling the class what you said? Perhaps we can all learn something.”

Ben sunk into his desk and felt his cheeks flush. He didn’t dare repeat what he had said in Basic. He had invited Yon to lick his scent glands.

“Well, Mr. Organa?”

“No,” Ben whispered, trying to press himself into the fibers of his desk.

**

Ben wasn’t, _wasn’t_ stupid no matter what Yon Thiterry and Jilihari said. He did well in class. He passed all his exams. His teachers told him he was doing well, his parents told him he was doing well, and Ben could tell that they all meant it.

But it was hard for him to listen to people when they talked.

Mr. Tuvi would ask him a question and he didn’t know that it was a math problem because Mr. Tuvi was worrying about his baby daughter who had caught a virus, and Ben heard his worry instead of his actual words. Or if Ben asked Alekkia and Noreth if he could sit beside them at lunch, and Alekkia said “yeah,” but Noreth hoped he would go away, Ben said nothing and wandered away, rejected, and then they both muttered about him behind their hands. 

People _lied_ to him, and he couldn’t figure out why. People asked stupid questions.

“Are you alright?”

“Why are you making that face?”

“I’m not afraid of you.”

“Isn’t your mom supposed to be beautiful? Why are you so ugly?”

“You have ears like a gundark.”

And Ben would stare and them and think _No. What. Go away. Why do you care? Leave me alone._ And sometimes he would forget to say it, and they would look at him like he had grown sprouts on his head. But sometimes… sometimes it was like they heard it anyway, and this shivery look came over them, and they didn’t usually talk to him again unless they had to.

But Ben was also tall for a human his age, and strong, and had decided that he was going to be a Gravball player when he grew up. He watched the Hawk-bat’s every game, and begged his dad to buy him a pair of grav boots. As soon as he got them, he bounced around the little court down on the 34th floor of the posh little ecosystem in Hanna City that was his and his parents’ home. He would rush into games with older kids whenever they would have him, and he would get knocked to the mats often enough, but he could jump, and he could throw, and even the older, bigger kids admired his scrappiness and egged him on in their informal pickup games.

“You gotta be using those ears as a windsail,” one kid with a long braid said, whooping and pulling him to the ground after Ben made a goal by jumping on an opposing players’ shoulders. And that was fine, because he could feel her admiration and glee as she thumped him on the back.

**

“You really serious about this Gravball thing?” his dad asked him as they rode the lift back up to their home.

Another stupid question, but Ben nodded vigorously.

“Alright,” Han breathed. “My son the Pro Gravballer,” he said, knuckling his scalp affectionately. “Guess there are worse career paths for you to follow.”

Ben didn’t pay much mind to his father’s quick spike of worry, but only because the next thing Han said was “There aren’t teams for kids as young as you around here. I’ll talk to your mom about finding you a coach… or… personal trainer. Whatever.”

“Really?” Ben asked, eyes widening with delight.

“Really,” his dad said, grinning down at him. “What good’s all this wealth and power if you’re not going to abuse it?”

**

The first coach, a wiry and bearded man who used to play for the SaberCats, didn’t work out.

“I don’t ever want to see him _again_ ,” Ben insisted after the first session.

“Why?” his father asked, bewildered. He had spent the whole lesson as a silent observer in the bleachers, and while he hadn’t paid full attention the entire time, he hadn’t seen or heard anything that seemed unusual or unpleasant.

“He hates me.”

“Why do you think that?”

“He just—he _does._ ”

“Ah, come on, he may have been a little rough on you, but—“

“No! It’s not—“ Ben bared his teeth and pulled at his hair in frustration, and because he was only seven and didn’t know words like _contempt_ and _condescension,_ he repeated. “He _hates_ me.”

“Look, give it a couple more lessons, I bet—“

“No!” Ben howled.

His father was tapping him in the middle of his back, ushering him out of the busy hall of the health club into a quiet alcove, and Ben was cringing, trying to make himself small, because his dad had gone from _confusion,_ which was fine and normal to _embarrassment-anger,_ but Ben was _not, not_ doing this again, because being near that man was like touching something slimy, only the slimy thing was _him_.

“ _Listen,_ ” Han hissed, crouching next to his son. “I don’t care if you don’t want to do this, this was supposed to be something _nice_ for you.”

“You can’t make me come back!” Ben whined and started to cry.

“ _Yes I can._ ”

“You can’t!” Ben struggled to argue against his tears.

“You not a toddler anymore, Ben, you can’t just cry and get your way.”

Han’s anger eventually softened, but Ben remained upset, and Han had to carry him out as if he was a much smaller child.

Ben still refused to go back, but his mother found him a slot with a different coach who taught a class with about half a dozen kids Ben’s own age.

“It’s not as prestigious,” she said, placating Han. “But maybe he’ll make some friends.”

**

When Ben reached 10 standard years, he was finally old enough to try out for a junior team. He was nervous, but he knew, as he watched the kids before him try out, that he was better than them. He stood at the edge of the court, waiting for his turn to try out, bouncing and doing little somersaults aided by his gravboots. On about the sixth somersault, his nerves refined into something more, something sublime. When his turn came up, he blocked every shot. He made every goal. There were a few parents, coaches, stragglers, older kids, other hopefuls, all of whom had only halfway been paying attention before, but now Ben knew every eye and feeler was on him. He felt them, and they only added to his elation. On his last shot he wasn’t even looking at the net, wasn’t watching the other kid guarding the goal. He didn’t even look as he leapt through the air and out of the antigrav field of the court. He knew his shot had gone through, and grinned.

His joy lasted only moments, however. He looked over his shoulder at the head coach, who, far from being impressed, had his mouth so downturned it was making new creases in his elephantine skin.

The coach hopped across the court in two leaps. He took Ben by the elbow and made him sit in a room by himself until tryouts were over. He didn’t tell Ben he hadn’t made the team. He didn’t have to.

By the time his mom came to get him he had stopped crying.

“C’mon, Ben,” she said, gentle and weary. “Let’s go talk to your uncle.”

**

“It sounds like what you did not many pros could have done.”

“It doesn’t matter. They won’t let me do it again.”

**

“He’s so _young._ Did _you_ ever have anything like this happen to you?” Leia asked her brother as they walked together through arched catwalks in the twilight.

“If I had, there wouldn’t have been anyone around to recognize what it was. Come to think of it, Biggs always did say that the way I flew was… unnatural,” he punctuated the last word with a wiggle of black-gloved fingers.

“He’s always had trouble making friends. Or relating to anyone. At all.”

“I suspect that’s as much to do with his personality as the force-sensitivity.”

Leia gave him a Look.

“It’s not a bad thing! Or wouldn’t be. He’s quiet. Observant. Thinks everything through before he speaks. He knows he’s operating on more engines than the other kids are, but it doesn’t help him understand them any better. Can’t you imagine how frustrating that is?”

“I suppose.”

“What about you? You didn’t have any problems when you were a child?”

Leia was quiet for a very long moment.

“I always had a sense of what to say to get people to do what I wanted them to.”

Luke laughed. “And it’s _Ben_ you’re worried about?”

Leia huffed. “I thought it was normal! I was a Princess!”

“I think _our_ advantage is that we had no idea how weird we were, and neither did anyone else. Ben _knows_ he’s different, and when other people start to notice he’s different… They know who he is. They know he’s my nephew, they know he’s your son, and they figure out _why_ he’s different. And it _scares_ them, Leia.”

“It shouldn’t!”

“The only people who remember the Jedi are _old_. Me, Ben, you, we’re like something out of a fairy tale to them.”

“Isn’t there _anything_ you can think to do for him?”

“I already talked to him. I think… the Jedi started training so _young,_ but I’m beginning to understand why.”

Leia stopped walking.

“You _don’t_ want to start training him as a Jedi.”

“Only if he wants to,” Luke said, stopping to look down at Leia. “More importantly, I think it would help him to meet some other people, other kids. People who are like him.”

“He’s _ten._ ”

“And the old Jedi Order didn’t accept human children older than _five._ ”

Leia shook her head and looked out over the twinkling skyline. “I wanted him to have other options.”

“What did _you_ want to be?” she asked Luke. “When you grew up?”

“A pilot.”

“I suppose you accomplished that one.”

“What about you?”

Leia sighed. “I was always going to be a Princess, and eventually Queen. It was politics or nothing.”

“Sometimes the Force doesn’t give us a choice.”


End file.
